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Trainer Ernie Ramirez, left, watches behind the cage as MMA fighter Matt Major gets ready to fight David Mitchell in the West Coast Fighting middleweight title at McClellan Convention Center in Sacramento, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2014. With 13 seconds left to go in the first round of his comeback fight, Major tapped out. Major conceded defeat, something he had no plan on doing that night. The clock had struck midnight on San Jose’s Cinderella man. (Josie Lepe/Bay Area News Group)

NORTH HIGHLANDS — With 13 seconds left in the first 5-minute round of his comeback fight Saturday night, Matt Major’s palm rapidly slapped the mat as his opponent grabbed him in a contorted choke hold.

With that tap out, Major conceded defeat, something he had no plan on doing that night. The clock had struck midnight on San Jose’s Cinderella man.

For a few minutes, he lay on the ground of the cage, puffing and red-faced, before dashing out of the cage, yelling in frustration.

“I’m sorry I lost the fight,” he said later, his shoulders slumped, to a group of supporters in a side room after the crowds had dissipated.

The forlorn Major was a speck of the man who was pumped up and ready to fight not 30 minutes before when he walked out to a cheering crowd at McClellan Convention Center in North Highlands, outside Sacramento, for the West Coast Fighting middleweight title. He was smiling, wriggling his arms to stay loose.

But all the months of training and rehabilitation, all while Major lived in a homeless camp under a Highway 87 overpass, came to a screeching halt in mere seconds as Major’s opponent, David Mitchell, wrapped his arm around Major’s neck.

No one on his team was happy, especially Major.

“I wish him the best, I want him to have the best, and he can have the best, but he has got to listen,” said Major’s trainer, Ernie Ramirez, after the loss. “He needs to listen to his coaches and not say ‘I got it.’ He needs to just take it in.” Major’s loss Saturday was a setback for the 30-year-old, but it was in no way the end of his career. Other fights are already in the process of being lined up, and he promised he would be back.

“When he comes back, there are going to be changes,” Ramirez said. “There are going to be rules that he just has to follow.” Mere minutes after his loss, Major already wanted to get back into the cage, to show what he has been training to do for the past several months. Major said he knows what he is capable of and that he knows he can and could do better.

This was Major’s fourth loss since he turned professional in 2004. Before returning to the cage Saturday, Major had lost his last two fights before he quit competing in 2010.

Friend Mike Kyle attributed Major’s sudden competitive halt to rough patches both inside the cage and in his personal life, saying that it became too much for Major to handle at once.

But rough or not, Major chuckled nervously about pressure to those who came to see him compete. He rambled repeated apologies about his lack of performance.

“I don’t want to hear any apologies to me,” said Major’s case manager, Maureen Damrel, who came with other members of the Downtown Streets Team — an organization Major volunteers at for five days a week to help clean downtown — to watch him fight.

And even with the loss Saturday night, win or otherwise, Major is a fighter that draws a crowd — roughly 1,600 people came to the event Saturday — said West Coast Fighting spokesman James Hudspeth.

Major, a known performer for years, was a no-brainer to put on the ticket as crews were gearing up for the event. He was even meant to fight Mitchell four years ago when Major’s opponent first started in the professional circuit, Hudspeth added.

So, pairing them together on the ticket seemed like a great way to give both fighters a chance they had previously been denied.

“Either way, Matt puts on a hell of a show,” Hudspeth said. “He’s going to be a draw.” For now, Major, who is still homeless, will take a few days to recuperate. Then, he will head back to Ramirez’s gym to start the training process all over again, he said. There will be new ways to focus, even greater discipline and different strategies to use as he attempts to prepare for his next fight.